"Is Schengen dead?" may well represent one of the most important questions of 2016. The unraveling of the refugee crisis, which highlighted the unpreparedness of our external border protection system and the lack of workable emergency solutions for our internal borders, forces European leaders to consider new options about Schengen cooperation, especially as fences are erected at some member states' borders. Since Schengen underpins what are Europe's main strengths, the free circulation of goods and people, there is a clear need to find a workable future in order to preserve the fundamentals of what creates prosperity, but also of what holds Europe together. Will Europe accept reverting back to the old system once the numerous exceptions have reached their expiration? Will Europe create a system based on short-term considerations due to the ongoing refugee crisis, or take its time to build a system that offers workable contingencies? What are the economic repercussions of any new plans for border protection?

Multi-speed Europe, where respective Member States of the EU are integrating at a different pace has been a commonplace since the Maastricht Treaty. With debates about Brexit, Grexit and persisting ambiguity about the future of the Eurozone as well as the Schengen Area talks about fragmentation of the European Union are more intense than ever before. On the other hand, proposal for further integration in specific policy fields and initiatives for an enhanced cooperation are also coming up. Some are saying that an “ever closer union” is de facto dead, yet others are still promoting the original federalist ideal. Is fragmentation a negative phenomenon per se for the future of the EU? Can we find a narrative which would allow continuation of differentiated integration, yet kept the EU together? Or has the Rubicon been already crossed concerning disintegration of the Union?

The European Union is in trouble: the so-called permissive consensus has long run out, and at the same time the EU elites as well as EU member states in intergovernmental formats continue to make decisions that affect the lives of its citizens without a clear possibility for the people to affect these decisions. While Euroscepticism is on rise, it is still a very fuzzy concept, encompassing different types of opposition to the EU. Euroscepticism can be roughly divided into three categories depending on whether it targets EU policies, EU politics or the EU as a polity. The first type is policy-oriented Euroscepticism, which disagrees with EU policies (such as the fiscal austerity or the TTIP). The second type of Euroscepticism can be labelled as anti-establishment Euroscepticism, as it contests mainstream politics and takes aim at the European political class. The last type of scepticism – anti-systemic Euroscepticism – rallies around phrases such as "national sovereignty" and "federalist superstate" while advocating radical solutions such as a state's exit from the EU or the dismantling of the European project as a whole. How serious a threat do different forms of Euroscepticism pose to the EU? How should we accommodate the legitimate policy-oriented opposition, and how should we cope with the anti-systemic Euroscepticism?

Every four years, Europe asks itself what role it will play in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, and the answer rarely fails to disappoint: there is either too little Europe (what about us?) or too much of it (especially coming from Donald Trump). After eight years of an Obama presidency that would have largely overlooked Europe - for good reasons - had the crisis in Ukraine not unraveled, the prospect of transatlantic relations is shaken up by Donald Trump's run and his questioning of the fundamentals of our relationship. His criticism of NATO freeloading, which woke up resentment that was simmering at the surface in Congress, and avowed disdain for free trade agreements represent strategic differences that may be hard to mend. Therefore, will a Europe that is turning increasingly populist, much like the U.S., favor a Hillary Clinton victory? Would she represent a more predictable road for Europe? Or does Europe need a wake-up call about its own ability to act on economic and strategic matters? And what can Europe learn from the populist wave that has taken over the U.S. during its primary campaigns?

A referendum on whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union is being held on Thursday, 23 June. No matter how the in-or-out vote ends up, the whole Brexit debate has made secession from the European Union a realistic option. We can already hear voices calling for a similar referendum in other Member States, old and new alike. Just few days to the ballot, this session will explore how the Brexit debate influenced discourses on EU membership in various Member States and what development we can expect in the case of the leave or remain victory. What strategies are radical Eurosceptic parties likely to adopt and what should be the answer of pro-European mainstream leaders?

Christophe Hillion, Senior Researcher, Swedish Institute for European Studies & Norwegian Institute of International AffairsVivien Pertusot, Head of Brussels, French Institute of International Relations
Moderator: Emma Hogan, Europe correspondent, The Economist

The EU´s relations to Russia have long been the single most visible dividing issue in EU external affairs. The Russian-Ukrainian war has changed this in most unexpected ways: First, the EU member states have been capable of uniting in regard to this issue and imposing several waves of sanctions on Russia. Second, the once rather vague perception of the threat coming from Russia has been transformed into a very concrete military, political and even normative challenge to the established European order. If the EU wants to demonstrate its continuing inner cohesion as well as its renewed external vigour, there could hardly be a better litmus test for this than the relations to Russia. Is a long-term cold peace with Russia what awaits the EU in the years to come? Has the neighbourhood become a cordon sanitaire, a neutralized zone of occasional conflict between the EU and Russia? Are there ways through which the EU could contribute to a peaceful solution of the Ukrainian crisis? What is to be expected from the post-2018 Russia with its old/new president?

The internal market, however imperfect and incomplete today, is essential for enhancing the competitiveness of the European based industries, services and other activities. What are the problems the businesses in the EU are still facing in this field? What measures have to be taken by the EU and national authorities to complete the internal single market, assure a correct and competitiveness friendly regulatory framework in order that goods, services, people and capital can finally more freely within the EU to the benefit of EU citizens and businesses. Is there a role the V4 countries and their representatives should/could play in this field?

Tomáš Prouza, State Secretary for European Affairs & Digital Agenda Coordinator, Office of the Government of the Czech RepublicKristian Hedberg, Deputy Head of the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEsTania le Moigne, Country Director, Google Czech Republic & SlovakiaPeter Stračár, General Director for Central and Eastern Europe, General Electric
Moderator: Ivan Hodač, Vice-President, Aspen Institute Prague

A shared political identity – a “national we” (Roger Scruton) or “a sense of moral like-mindedness” (Frank Knight) – is commonly seen as a necessary feature of a democratically governed society. Yet, as shown by the experience of multiethnic and multilingual democracies, and by the emergence of a political nationhood in the United States, such identity is fluid. Not even Europe’s political nations are immutable structures and have been shaped by myriad historical accidents, wars, and political reforms. Does Europe need a common political identity? What are the benefits from joint political decision-making, as opposed to ad hoc cooperation between sovereign nation states? Does a shared political identity exist in Europe? If so, what are its elements? A chicken & egg question: What comes first, joint political institutions (such as the EU) or a shared political identity? The Eurozone and refugee crisis seem to have fostered nationalism and xenophobic populism across Europe. How well has the existing form of European integration served us in building a shared political identity on the European continent? How have individual political leaders? What needs to change in order for the common European decision-making not lead to populist backlashes such as the ones that now threatening to undo the European project altogether?

Has the EU's response to combatting terrorism been sufficient in the wake of the Paris and Brussels bombings? Should the EU create its own Central Intelligence Agency? What is the difference between the EU's mutual assistance clause of Article 42.7 TEU and NATO's Article 5? Germany is planning towards the creation of a 'European Defence Union'. Is this feasible and, if so, what would be its contours and mandate? Would the V4 countries buy into the plans? Can the EU provide a sense of security to its citizens?

The freedom of movement and the right to equal treatment within the European Union - what does the British “Emergency Break” and the upcoming Mobility Package mean about it? The interpretations of rights - is the Basic Income idea an emancipatory idea that all citizens would benefit from? The translation of social justice into practice - how to argue and act for triangle of: progressive taxation system, increase of the taxes on the top 1% and fighting tax avoidance? The promise of a prosperous future for all - how does the recent migration and refugee crisis impact the European dream? How to make Youth Guarantee work on the European, national and local levels? The horizon of social standards - how can the EU fight against growing precariousness within the labour market, while pursuing strategies of change towards Digital, Care and Green Economy?

Moderator: Richard Cockett, Business Editor of The Economist
Rapporteur: Ernst Stetter, Secretary-General of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Brussels

While the potential Greek exit from the Eurozone no longer seems to be an acute possibility, we believe it is useful to revive the arguments in the related debate. The debate about a possible Grexit from the euro touched upon the economic, but also the normative and legal foundations of the economic and monetary union. In addition to the Greek case, we would like to discuss a more general set of questions. From the point of view of individual member states, under which conditions would a state's exit from the Eurozone be justifiable? From the point of view of the Eurozone as a whole, what is more threatening, a default within the Eurozone or a(n) (forced) exit from the Eurozone?

Speaker FOR 1: Dimitri Sotiropoulos, Associate professor of political science, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens

With European security having taken a front seat in discussions due to the pressures of the refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, and a resurgent Russia, the idea of a European Army has resurfaced and created debates among experts and officials. This proposal, put forward by German Minister of Defense von der Leyen and supported by the President of the European Commission, has been welcomed coldly in European capitals. Historical reluctance to let go of an important component of national sovereignty is at play, while also thinking that such a proposal may constitute a way for Germany to escape taking on a greater national role in European security affairs. There are also concerns that the role of NATO, which remains primordial for countries in Central and Eastern Europe, may be diminished in the process, and the nature of security guarantees changed. However, the necessity of more efficient spending, and of a more united European approach – underpinned by strong regional grouping that already exist – constitute strong enough arguments to consider. If one of the stumbling blocks to the construction of European defense, the United Kingdom, is removed, may we witness a new dynamism to this debate?

This panel will discuss whether the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as the TTIP agreement between the EU and the US is in the best interest of the EU. Among the benefits of such trade deal is the abolishment of the remaining tariff barriers in the bilateral trade, more importantly, curtail of the non-tariff barriers (unnecessary procedures, certifications requirements, access to the public procurement etc.), thus contributing to the economy growth and jobs creation in the EU, finally forming the world biggest trading block capable to set and further promote common standards in the global economic system. The shortcomings of such trade and investment agreement can be the risk of food quality requirements degradation in the EU resulting from a compromise where American rather loose and European stricter regulations need to converge. Furthermore, the contentious mechanism of the private dispute settlement between investors and state (ISDS) is, according to its opponents, to limit the sovereign power of the state to enforce its regulations by allowing the investors to sue the state easily for harming their interests and eventually hamper the capacity of the state to freely manage its own economy.

Speaker FOR 1: Gabriel Siles-Brügge, Lecturer in Politics at University of Manchester

Speaker FOR 2: Ralf Michaels, Professor at Duke University School of Law (tbc)

Speaker AGAINST 1: Marcin Korolec, Polish civil servant & lawyer, former Minister of Environment of the Republic of Poland

Vision for Europe is the annually bestowed award for distinguished personalities who have, in the course of their lives, devoted substantial energies to the establishment and development of European ideals such as strengthening peaceful cooperation among European nations, developing a fair institutional arrangement of European integration, making European integration more accessible to European publics, and overcoming prejudices and misconceptions related to the integration process. The awarding ceremony is part of the annual Prague European Summit, and it is accompanied by the European Vision speech, which is delivered by the awardee.

18:30 Official Opening: Lubomír Zaorálek, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

International Programme Board

The International Programme Board is the key advisory body of the Prague European Summit.
It meets on a regular basis, at least once a year. The International Programme Board is
comprised of leading international thinkers who care about the future of European integration.
The Board is essential in shaping the substantive part of the Prague European Summit, and its
tasks include the formulation of programme priorities for the upcoming Summit in June 2016 as
well as innovative suggestions regarding the Summit´s structure, its side-events and its output.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

Michael Žantovský

Director, Václav Havel Library & President, Aspen Institute Prague

Photos 6th June

Photos 7th June

Photos 8th June

Videos

About PES:
The Prague European Summit is conceived as a platform for a regular high-level strategic
debate on the future of the European Union. Its goal is to look for common answers to the key
challenges that Europe is facing in the economic, social, foreign-policy and institutional fields.
…

As an initiative of the consortium of three prominent Czech think-tanks (the Institute of
International Relations, European Values and EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy)
carried out under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and
Representation of the European Commission in the Czech Republic, it will offer space for an
informal dialogue among political representatives, high-ranking state officials, representatives of
interest groups, businessmen, academicians and journalists.

By hosting this regular summit on the future of European integration in Prague, the organizers
want to contribute to recasting the image of the Czech Republic as a member country which
self-confidently yet constructively joins the strategic discussions on the course of the EU. The
ambition of the Prague European Summit is to become analogous to the World Economic
Forum in Davos, the Munich Security Conference or GLOBSEC in Bratislava, and its main focus
is on the strategic issues of European integration – a topic that has not been covered by any
existing forum yet.

About conference
The conference is organized in the framework of the Prague European Summit, a new platform
for strategic dialogue about common responses to new challenges the European Union needs
to deal with in different areas. Following this year pilot conference, the first annual summit shall
take place in June 2016.
…

The topic of the first year reflects the current state of the integration process. On one hand the
economic crisis has been overcome, and in reaction to it the economic governance in the
Eurozone and in the EU as a whole has been fundamentally transformed. On the other hand in
the fields of foreign and security policy the EU faces the fundamental challenge of the
destabilization of its neighbourhood, including the aggressive policy of Russia towards Ukraine
and the aspirations of the so-called Islamic State in the southern and south-eastern
neighbourhood. These changes in the strategic environment call, now much more than any time
before, for effective work on the part of the EU institutions, which will, at the same time, need
sufficient democratic legitimacy. The aim of this year’s conference is therefore to re-think both
the inner institutional setting of the EU and the impact its decision-making mechanisms will have
on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.

Péter Balázs

Prof. Balázs graduated in Budapest at the Faculty of Economics of the “Karl Marx” University (today Corvinus University). He got his PhD degree and habilitated at the same University. He is ScD of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In parallel with his government and diplomatic career, he has been teaching and doing research. He was nominated Professor of the Corvinus University in 2000 and joined the CEU as full time Professor in 2005.

Prof. Balázs is currently holding a Jean Monnet Ad Personam Chair at CEU. His research activities are centered on the foreign policy of the EU and problems of the late modernization and European integration of the Eastern part of the continent. He also analyzes questions of European governance including the future of European institutions. He is regularly teaching at various home and foreign universities, lecturing in English, French, German and Hungarian. In 2005, he established a research center at the CEU for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS).

Vladimír Bartovic

Director, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy

Vladimír Bartovic is the director of EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy. In 2014 he has been appointed external advisor – a member of the Group of External Advisors on the EU policies to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and a member of the Programme Council of the Czech – Polish Forum. In 2015 he has been elected member of the Board of Directors of PASOS – Policy Association for an Open Society.

He graduated in international trade and international politics at the University of Economics, Prague, Faculty of International Relations. He also studied at University of Granada, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology.

From 2011 to 2012 he served as a director of Strategic Planning and Analysis at the Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. He also worked as an editor in the Integrace magazine. He has been lecturing on topical EU issues at the Institute of Public Administration and the Czech National Bank. He co-operated with OSCE election missions in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Kosovo.

Steven Blockmans

Senior Research Fellow & Head of EU Foreign Policy, Centre for European Policy Studies

Steven Blockmans is Head of EU Foreign Policy at the Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam, and a founding member of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER). He is the author of ‘Tough Love: the EU’s relations with the Western Balkans’ (AP/CUP 2007) and the (co-)editor of more than 10 volumes, including ‘The EU's Role in Global Governance’ (OUP 2013) and ‘Differentiated Integration in the EU: From the Inside Looking Out’ (CEPS 2014). He served as leading author of the FES-sponsored Task Force on ‘More Union in European Defence’ chaired by Javier Solana (CEPS 2015). For almost 20 years, he has worked for the EU institutions and member states’ governments on numerous research and technical assistance projects in wider Europe and in Asia. He is currently project leader of a SIDA-sponsored study on the implementation of the EU Association Agreements with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Blockmans holds a PhD in law from Leiden University.

Martin Bútora

Advisor to Slovak President Andrej Kiska

Ambassador (Rtd) Martin Bútora is the advisor to President of Slovak Republic Andrej Kiska (from June 2014). He is the founder and honorary president of the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislava established in 1997. In 1990 – 1992 he served as advisor for human rights to President Václav Havel. From 1999 to 2003, he was the Ambassador of Slovakia to the United States.

Amb. Butora holds a PhD. in Sociology from Comenius University. He taught at Charles University in Prague, Trnava University and University of Economics in Bratislava. He writes on civil society, foreign policy, and democratic transformation. In the last years, he co-authored and/or co-edited Visegrad Elections 2010: Domestic Impact and European Consequences, 2011; Active Citizenship and Nongovernmental Sector in Slovakia, 2012; Alternative Politics? The Rise of New Political Parties in Central Europe, 2013; Collective Defence and Common Security. Twin Pillars of the Atlantic Alliance. Group of Policy Experts report to the NATO Secretary General, 2014.

Ambassador Butora is the recipient of the Democracy Service Medal from the National Endowment for Democracy (1999), Crystal Wing Award for diplomatic achievements (2002), and Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2011). He served as Human Rights Advisor to Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel (1990–1992).

Petr Drulák

Political Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

Professor Petr Drulák, Ph.D. (1972) is the Political Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (since 1 July 2015), From 2014 to 2015 he has had a position of the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In past he had worked as a director of the Institute of International Relations in Prague. Since 2012 he has been a professor of political science at Charles University, Prague. Among his research interests belong political theories, European integration and theories of international relations. During his rich academic career Petr Drulák has published many research articles in international journals (EJIR, JEPP, JIRD, Osteuropa) and books (Regional and International Relations of Central Europe, Palgrave, 2012; The Return of Geopolitics in Europe?, Cambridge University Press, 2012). In Czech language he wrote couple of textbooks and books, the latest one is Politika nezájmu: Česko a Západ v krizi, SLON, 2012. Nowadays, he actively contributes to Czech newspapers and media.

Roland Freudenstein

Deputy Director & Head of Research, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Roland Freudenstein was born in Bonn, Germany. After a two year voluntary military service, he studied political science, economics, Japan studies and international relations in Bonn and Los Angeles. Having worked as a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, he became a member of the foreign and security planning staff of the European Commission in Brussels in the 1990s. Subsequently, he became the director of the Warsaw office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and later held a leading function in the Foundation’s central office in Berlin. After coming back to Brussels in 2004, he represented the German city state of Hamburg to the EU.

Roland Freudenstein is now, since 2008, Head of Research and Deputy Director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He has contributed to debates and published extensively on European integration, international security, German-Polish relations, global democracy support and recently about the changes in the Middle East.

Ivan Hodač

Vice-President, Aspen Institute Prague

Ivan Hodač is a Founder and Vice-President of the Aspen Institute Prague. He was Secretary-General of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) from 2001 until October 2013. He is currently member of a special Advisory Group of experts, which advises the European Commission in negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the United States (TTIP). He is also the Chairman of the Board at cabinet DN. The Financial Times listed him among the most influential personalities in Brussels politics. Before joining ACEA, he was Senior Vice-President and Head of the Time Warner Corporate office for Europe. Previously he was Secretary-General of the trade organization IFMA/IMACE, Senior Economist at Didier & Associates, and Assistant Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. He was born in Prague, where he studied mechanical engineering. He completed his education in economics and political science at the University of Copenhagen and the College of Europe in Bruges (European studies).

Radko Hokovský

Executive Director, European Values Think-Tank

Radko Hokovský is the Executive Director of the European Values Think-tank. Professionally he deals with the problematic of European Union inner security and institutional questions of the European Integration. He is a lecturer at the Institute of Political Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Charles University) and the Department of International Relations and European Studies (Metropolitan University Prague). He is currently finishing his Dissertation at the Department of International Relations of the Faculty of Social Sciences. At this faculty he already graduated in 2006 from the Bachelor programme of Politology and International Relations. He achieved his master’s degree “Master of European Studies” at the Centre for European Integration Studies (ZEI) at the University of Bonne.

Beata Jaczewska

Executive Director, International Visegrad Fund

Beata Jaczewska is an Executive Director of International Visegrad Fund, former Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Poland, lawyer, negotiator, and long-term civil servant. She is statutory representative of the International Visegrad Fund (IVF), personally responsible for fulfilling priorities set by governments of V4 countries in the field of continuous improvement of the cooperation between 4 societies, as well as assisting neighbouring countries on their development paths.

Jaczewska is an expert in EU legislative processes and international negotiations. Her background is European law and economics. She graduated from several prestigious universities such as Warsaw University, Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and Warsaw School of Economics. She also holds a degree from the University of Cambridge in European law.

For years, Beata has been gaining professional experience in Polish public administration, recently in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her work as Deputy Minister for the Ministry of the Environment was responsible for international relation as well as policies of sustainable development, air quality and climate change. Prior to that, she also served in the Ministry of the Economy as the Economy Development Department’s Director where she was focused on strategic planning of the economic growth in such areas as sustainable development policy, industrial policy, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Petr Kratochvíl

Director, Institute of International Relations Prague

Petr Kratochvíl is the Director of the Institute of International Relations and a lecturer at several Czech universities. He is the Chairman of the Academic Council of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic as well as a member of a range of academic and scientific councils. Petr Kratochvíl represents the IIR in various international associations such as the Trans European Policy Studies Association or the European Consortium for Political Research.

He has published extensively on European integration, EU-Russian relations, institutional reform and the EU enlargement, the role of religion in international affairs, and international relations theory. The book The European Union and the Catholic Church: Political Theology of European Integration, co-authored by Tomáš Doležal and published in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan, is one of the latest examples of his research activity. He is also often called upon to present his analyses by various Czech and foreign media.

Pascal Lamy

Former European Commissioner and Director-General, WTO

From September 2005 to August 2013, Pascal Lamy served for two consecutive terms as General Director- of the World Trade Organization (WTO). A committed European and member of the French Socialist party, he was Chief of Staff for the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1994. He then joined the Credit Lyonnais as CEO until 1999, before returning to Brussels as European Trade Commissioner until 2004. Mr. Lamy holds degrees from HEC School of Management, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP) and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Pascal Lamy was appointed, in Mai 2015, as interministerial delegate for the preparation of the French candidature for the Universal Exhibition 2025. He shares his other activities between the Jacques Delors Institute (President emeritus), the presidency of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics, the presidency of the Oxford Martin School Commission for Future Generations, the vice-presidency of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the Co-chair of the Equitable Access Initiative (Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), his participation to the Global Ocean Commission and UNAIDS as well as different subjects related to international affairs.

Christian Lequesne

Christian Lequesne holds BA and MA degrees from Sciences Po Strasbourg and the College of Europe, Bruges. He then got his Ph.D. in political science and his Habilitation in Sciences Po Paris. Since 1988, he worked as a research fellow and then Professor at Sciences Po. He was also a deputy director of CERI, and later director of CERI. Furthermore, he worked as a director of the Centre français de recherche en sciences sociales (CEFRES) in Prague and as a professor at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. He is regular visiting professor at the School of Government of LUISS University, the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, and the Department of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague.

He is currently Co-Chief Editor of European Review of International Studies, member of the editorial board of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Journal of European Integration and member of the scientific committees of Politique européenne and Etudes européennes. Moreover, he is member of the Scientific Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (Berlin), the Fondation Robert Schuman and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Was awarded the F. Palacky social sciences medal by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques.

Barbara Lippert

Dr. phil. Barbara Lippert studied Political Science, Contemporary and Eastern European History and Slavonic Studies at the University of Bonn and the Free University Berlin between the years 1981-1987. She then acquired her Doctorate (Dr. phil) at the University of Bonn. In 1990–1992, she worked as a Senior Associate at the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Bonn and Berlin and between1992–2009 as a Deputy Director of the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Berlin.

Since April 2009, she has worked as a Director of Research and Member of Executive Board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin.

Her areas of expertise are EU enlargement policy, development of the political system of the EU, Germany and European integration and the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Jan Michal

Head of Representation, European Commission in the Czech Republic

Jan Michal has been a Head of Representation of the European Commission in the Czech Republic since September 2010. In the past, he worked also as an Adviser - Secretariat General of the European Commission (2009-2010), as a Director of the UN Department at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (2007-2009), as a Deputy permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to NATO (2007-2003), or as a Director of the UN Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2002-2003). He also worked at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Hague as a secretary between 1996-2001. In 1996, he acquired his Degree in International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University.

Ana Palacio

Former Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs & Member of the Council of State of Spain

Ana Palacio is an international lawyer specializing in international and European Union law. She is a member of the Council of State of Spain (2012). She is a member of the Board of Enagás (2014), the Technical Manager of the Spanish Gas System, and Pharmamar (2009), a leading biotechnology company. She is a member of the International Board of Investcorp (2008), a world-leading manager of alternative investments. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Instituto Elcano (2015); a member of the Executive Committee of the Boards of the Atlantic Council of the United States and the European Council on Foreign Relations; and a member of the World Economic Forum’s US Global Agenda Council (2014). She is a visiting professor at the Edmund E. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (2014).

Ms. Palacio served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain (2002-2004) and was a member of the Spanish Parliament (2004-2006) where she chaired the Joint Committee of the two Houses for European Union Affairs. She has been Senior Vice-President and General Counsel of the World Bank Group and Secretary General of ICSID (2006-2008). From 1994 until 2002, she was a member of European Parliament where she chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, as well as the Conference of Committee Chairs. Ms. Palacio publishes regularly in periodicals and journals. In particular, she maintains a monthly column at Project Syndicate.

Tomáš Prouza

State Secretary for European Affairs & Digital Agenda Coordinator, Office of the Government of the Czech Republic

Ing. Tomáš Prouza, MBA was appointed State Secretary for European Affairs and Digital Agenda Coordinator by the Prime Minister of the Czech RepublicBetween 2007–2014 he worked as an Expert for Financial Inclusion, Consumer Protection and Financial Literacy at The World Bank, firstly in Prague and then in Washington. From 2004 to 2007 he held the position of Deputy Minister of Finance responsible for financial markets, the European Union and international relations, including the OECD and the World Bank. Between 2005 and 2006 he was the first National Coordinator for Euro Introduction. He was also Deputy Governor of the International Monetary Fund for the Czech Republic and a member of the Financial Market Committee (an advisory body to the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank).

Anna Stellinger

Director-General, National Board of Trade, Sweden

Anna Stellinger is Director-General of the National Board of Trade, appointed by the Swedish government for a period of six years. She holds university degrees in French and political science from Lund University, Sweden, and an International master’s degree in International Relations from Sciences Po de Paris, France. For 10 years Anna Stellinger was a researcher and a Director of Research at several non-partisan think tanks and institutes in Paris, France. Before taking up her position as Director-General of the National Board of Trade, she was the Director of SIEPS, the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies.

Anna Stellinger is a member of the University Board of Lund University, and a member of the Swedish Council on Basic Values.

Ernst Stetter

Secretary General, Foundation for European Progressive Studies

Ernst Stetter has been the Secretary General of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) since its creation in 2008. He is also a regular commentator on EU affairs in the media.

Ernst Stetter is an economist and political scientist. He studied in Tübingen and Heidelberg (Germany) focusing on international trade, finance, economic and social policy as well as development issues. In 1980 he obtained his PhD in political science for his dissertation entitled The Association of ACP-Countries (Lomé I and II) to the European Community and the STABEX-System.

From 1980 to 2008 he worked for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in various positions. After serving as the Head of the Africa Department and the Head of the Central Europe Unit, in 1997 he moved to Paris and became the Director of the FES Office in France while in 2003 he was appointed as Director of the EU-Office of FES in Brussels.

In 2003 he received the French decoration of Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite.

Pawel Swieboda

Deputy Head, European Political Strategy Centre, European Commission

Prior to joining the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), an in-house think tank of the European Commission reporting directly to President Juncker, as Deputy Head, Paweł Świeboda was President of demosEUROPA – Centre for European Strategy, an EU policy think tank based in Warsaw, from 2006 to 2015. Earlier, he was Director of the EU Department at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the years 2001-2006 and EU Advisor to the President of Poland from 1996 to 2000.

A graduate of the London School of Economics (BSs in Economics), and the University of London (MA in International Relations), he is a member of a number of advisory boards of European think tanks as well as a member of the Global Agenda Council on Europe of the World Economic Forum. In 2013/2014, he was Rapporteur of the Review of European Innovation Partnerships.

Vessela Tcherneva

Senior Director for Programmes & Head of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Sofia Office

Vessela Tcherneva is the co-founder of Sofia Platform, a venue for dialogue between members of NGOs, the media, and politics from Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. From 2010 to 2013 she was the spokesperson for the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the political cabinet of Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov. She has been the head of the Bulgarian office of the European Council for Foreign Relations since 2008, as well as programme director for Foreign Policy Studies at the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia. Between 2004 and 2006 she was secretary of the International Commission on the Balkans, chaired by former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato. She has been a supervising editor for Foreign Policy Bulgaria magazine since its launch in 2005.

Nathalie Tocci

Deputy Director, Instituto Affari Internazionali

Nathalie Tocci is Deputy Director of Istituto Affari Internazionali, Editor of The International Spectator and special adviser to HR Federica Mogherini, in charge of outreaching to think tanks and coordination of work on a new European Security Strategy. Previously she held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy, Washington and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Florence. Her research interests include European foreign policy, conflict resolution, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Her major publications include Turkey and the European Union, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (co-author); Multilateralism in the 21st Century. London and New York, Routledge, 2013 (co-editor), Turkey’s European Future: Behind the Scenes of America’s Influence on EU-Turkey Relations, New York and London, New York University Press,2011 (author); The EU and Conflict Resolution, Routledge, London, 2007 (author); and “EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution: Catalyzing Peace or Consolidating Partition in Cyprus?”, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, (author). Nathalie is the 2008 winner of the Anna Lindh award for the study of European Foreign Policy.

Vaira Vike-Freiberga

President, World Leadership Alliance/Club de Madrid and former President of Latvia

Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga is President of the World Leadership Alliance/Club de Madrid and former President of Latvia (1999-2007). She played a leading role in achieving membership in the EU and NATO for her country and was Special Envoy on UN reform. She was vice-chair of the Reflection group on the long-term future of Europe, and chaired the High-level group on freedom and pluralism of media in the EU in 2011-12.

She is a member, board member or patron of 30 international organisations, including ECFR, Nizami Ganjavi International Centre (Co-chair), Library of Alexandria, Trust Fund for Victims of the ICC, Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security of OSCE, Advisory Council of CEPA, as well as five Academies. She has been awarded 34 Orders of Merit and 19 Honorary doctorates.

Born in Riga, Vaira started her schooling in refugee camps in Germany, continued in Morocco, and obtained a Ph.D. at McGill University (1965). After a distinguished career as Professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, she returned to her native country in 1998 to head the Latvian Institute. Less than a year later she was elected President by the Latvian Parliament and re-elected in 2003.

Michal Baranowski

Director, Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund

Michał Baranowski is the director of GMF's Warsaw office, where he focuses on transatlantic relations, U.S. foreign policy, and the relations between the United States and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Prior to helping launch the Warsaw office, he served at GMF’s headquarters in Washington, DC, where he developed GMF’s programming in Poland and CEE. Before that posting, Baranowski worked in GMF’s Brussels office, where he focused on EU and U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Georgia, and where he also established the Young Transatlantic Network.

He has published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, the Warsaw Business Journal, the Kyiv Post, and GMF’s Transatlantic Take series. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Institute for Western Affairs in Poznań, Poland. He holds a masters of European public affairs from Maastricht University, and has studied at Mercer University in the United States and the University of Oxford.

Vít Beneš

Researcher, Institute of International Relations

Christian Bluth

Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung

Christian Bluth joined the Global Economic Dynamics team of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in 2016, where he focuses on topics related to European economic integration and global trade. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a master’s from SciencesPo Paris.

Elisabeth Braw

Elisabeth Braw, a London-based journalist, will soon join Control Risks as a Senior Consultant. She is currently a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. In addition, she is a regular contributor to Foreign Affairsand Foreign Policy, specializing in northern European security, and writes the Transatlantic Connection blog for the World Affairs Journal. She was previously a Europe correspondent for Newsweek, and prior to that, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford. She has also been the global exclusives reporter for the Metro International newspaper group, where she interviewed leaders including Ban Ki-moon, Christine Lagarde, and Francois Hollande. Elisabeth is a native of Sweden and attended university in Germany, finishing her Magister Artium degree in political science and German literature with a dissertation on nuclear weapons reduction in Europe.

Richard Cockett

Business Editor, The Economist

Dr Richard Cockett is the Britain Business Editor of The Economist newspaper. A graduate of Oxford University, he gained a Phd in history from London University where he taught for a decade before joining The Economist. For the newspaper he has reported from Latin America, Africa and Asia, from where he returned to take up his present position in 2014. He has written several books on aspects of British history and politics, and also about Sudan and Burma/Myanmar.

Frances Coppola

Freelance journalist

Frances spent many years working for various banks as a project manager, business analyst and systems specialist. She turned to financial writing in 2010 and now writes professionally for a range of publications including Forbes and the FT. She is the author of the Coppola Comment finance & economics blog and a frequent commentator on matters economic and financial on TV, radio and online news media. Frances is also a professional singer and an Associate of the Royal College of Music.

Thanos Dokos

Director-General, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy

Thanos P. Dokos received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Cambridge University and has held research posts at the Hessische Stiftung Friedens und Konfliktforschung (1989-90) and the Center for Science and International Affairs (CSIA) at Harvard University (1990-91). He served as the Director for Research, Strategic Studies Division, Hellenic Ministry of National Defence (1996-98) and as an Advisor on NATO issues to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998-1999). He was a NATO research fellow for 1996-98. He is currently the Director-General of ELIAMEP. He has taught at the Universities of Athens and Piraeus, the Hellenic National Defense College, the Diplomatic Academy and the Hellenic National Security School. He has also been a visiting scholar at Bilgi University, Istanbul (2008). His research interests include global trends, international security, Greek-Turkish relations, Turkish foreign and security policy & Mediterranean security.

Alexander Duleba

Director, Research Centre, Slovak Foreign Policy Association

Alexander Duleba (1966) is the director of the Research Centre of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA). He obtained the PhD degree in political science from the Institute for Political Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1998 and the Associate Professor (Doc.) degree from the Comenius University in Bratislava in 2009. From May 1993 until August 1995 he was an analyst with the Slovak Institute for International Studies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. Since September 1995 he started to work as a research fellow for the RC SFPA; in May 2000, he became its director and simultaneously the head of the Center’s Eastern Europe research program. Since May 2010 he became also the lecturer at the Institute of Political Science of the Presov University.

Martin Ehl

Chief International Editor, Hospodářské noviny

Martin Ehl has been working as reporter of Czech economic daily Hospodářské noviny since 2001 and as Chief International Editor of the same daily since January 2006. Previously, he has worked in various Czech media. His regular column on Central Europe has been appearing in the English internet magazine Transitions Online since April 2011. His column was awarded with „Writing for Central Europe“ prize in Austria in 2012. He has also been co-editor of Visegrad Insight magazine. Moreover, he cooperated with British Monocle24 internet radio station and with public Czech TV, public Czech radio and publishes articles also in Austrian, Serbian, Slovak and Polish press. In 1999 he worked as research fellow at the Institute of international relations in Prague. In 2001-2006 he worked as lecturer at the University of West Bohemia Pilsen and between 2009 and 2011 he lectured at the Metropolitan University Prague. Furthermore, he is author of the recently published e-book of columns „Middle Europa”, the book „The Third Decade: On life, politics and people between Brussels and Gazprom“ and co-authored the book „Globalization: pro and contra“ as well as two textbooks on political system of South Eastern Europe, globalization and development.

Henry Foy

Central Europe Correspondent, Financial Times

Henry Foy is the Financial Times Central Europe Correspondent, based in Warsaw. He covers Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and the wider CEE region for the world's most trusted financial newspaper. He writes across the unfolding political, economic and business stories, delivering a global perspective on one of the world's fastest-developing and most interesting regions. He has interviewed Donald Tusk, Andrzej Duda, Robert Fico and Andrej Kiska and a range of other political and business leaders, and is one of the region’s most prominent correspondents and observers.

Previously the FT's award-winning Motor Industry Correspondent, Henry Foy joined the paper after three years as a reporter for Reuters in New Delhi and Mumbai, India.

Štefan Fule

Former European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy

Štefan Füle served as European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy between 2010 and 2014. Until then, in 2009, he served in the Czech government as the European Affairs Minister. Ambassador Füle graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He started his professional career at the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1987 and since then has held many important positions at the Ministry, Czech embassies abroad as well as international organizations such as UN or NATO. In 1990 - 1995 he served in the UN structures as the First Secretary of the Czechoslovakian (later Czech) Permanent Delegation at the UN, later Member and Alternate Representative to the UN Security Council. After that he directed the United Nations Department (1995 - 1996) and Security Policy Department (1996 - 1998) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1998 he was appointed Czech Ambassador to Lithuania and in 2003 became Ambassador to the UK. In 2005 he became Czech Permanent Representative to NATO until 2009, when was appointed European Affairs Minister. Ambassador Füle recently joined International Advisory Board of the Central European Strategy Council.

Jeffrey Gedmin

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council

Jeffrey Gedmin is a Nonresident Senior Fellow for the Future Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council. He is also a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a Senior Adviser at Blue Star Strategies. From 2011 to 2014, Gedmin was President and CEO of the London-based Legatum Institute. Prior to joining the Legatum Institute in early 2011, Gedmin served for four years as President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) headquartered in Prague. Before RFE/RL, Gedmin served as President and CEO of the Aspen Institute in Berlin. Before that, he was a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC and Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative.

He is the author of several books, including The Hidden Hand: Gorbachev and the Collapse of East Germany (1992). Gedmin also served as co-executive producer for two major PBS documentaries: "The Germans, Portrait of a New Nation" (1995), and "Spain's 9/11 and the Challenge of Radical Islam in Europe" (2007). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on several boards, including the Institute for State Effectiveness, the Kleptocracy Initiative (based at the Hudson Institute), the Center for Entrepreneurship and Development (part of the University of California Berkley), and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Masters Program.

Kristalina Georgieva

European Commission Vice-President

Kristalina Georgieva has an M. A. in Political Economy and Sociology and a PhD in Economic Science from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she was an Associate Professor between 1977 and 1991. She conducted post-graduate research at London School of Economics in 1987-88. In 1991, she went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Visiting Scholar in environmental policy, co-led a course on economies in transition, and consulted on environmental policy in Eastern Europe.

She is the current European Commission Vice-President. She negotiates and manages the EU budget, ensuring that it is invested in the best way to serve EU citizens. Prior to that function, Vice-President Georgieva was the Commissioner responsible for the EU's International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. During her term in office she oversaw the delivery of life saving assistance to nearly 500 million children, women and men affected by conflicts and natural disasters around the world. Before joining the European Commission in February 2010, she held a number of positions at the World Bank.

During her term as European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva was awarded the 2010 Commissioner of the Year and European of the Year by European Voice. She was also awarded the 2014 Central European University Open Society Prize.

Agata Gostynska - Jakubowska

Research Fellow, Centre for European Reform

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska is a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. Agata works on the EU institutional architecture, EU decision making process, institutional dimension of the EU economic governance, differentiated integration and on Polish European policy. Before joining the CER, Agata worked as a senior research fellow at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw where she dealt with the EU institutional affairs. She provided recommendations for the Polish government on how to strengthen its position on the EU stage and enhanced media knowledge on EU affairs. She has participated in numerous collaborative projects funded by i.a. International Visegrad Fund, the European Commission (under the EU Seventh Framework Programme), as well as by Norway grants. She holds master degrees in law and international relations, both obtained at Warsaw University.

Kristian Hedberg

Deputy Head of Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs

A Finnish national, Mr Hedberg holds an MBA/Economics degree from the Turku School of Economics in Turku, Finland and a post-graduate diploma from the School of International Relations of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

He joined the European Commission as a desk officer in DG Competition in 1996 and later worked in DG Enlargement. Mr Hedberg pursued his career as a Member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Liikanen (Enterprise policy and Information society) and later of the Cabinet of Commissioner Rehn (Enlargement policy). In 2007, he became the Deputy Head of the Cabinet of Commissioner Kuneva (Consumer policy).

In 2009, he joined DG Enlargement as the Head of Unit responsible for relations with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Thereafter, he took up the post of Head of Unit dealing with Land Transport Policy in the Commission’s Directorate General for Mobility and Transport.

As of November 2014, he is the Deputy Head of Commissioner Bieńkowska's Cabinet (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs).

Christophe Hillion

Senior Researcher, Swedish Institute for European Studies & Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Christophe Hillion has been professor of European Law at the University of Leiden (since 2005), research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International studies (NUPI) in Oslo, visiting professor of European integration law at the university of Gothenburg (since 2015), and senior researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS) in Stockholm (since 2009). He previously held academic positions at University College London, the University of Cambridge, and at the College of Europe in Bruges and Natolin (Warsaw). He has published on external relations, enlargement and institutional law of the European Union. His present research relates to the different models of European cooperation (eg differentiated integration within the EU and association with its neighbours, including through the EEA), negotiations of EU comprehensive trade agreements (e.g. EU-US TTIP, Association agreements with Ukraine), and the protection of the rule of law and fundamental rights in the EU and in its external action. He is a member of the editorial board of the Common Market Law Review, European Papers, and of the governing board of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER) in The Hague. Hillion regularly advises European governments (e.g. most recently the Swedish, UK and Ukrainian MFAs) and institutions (European Parliament, Commission, External Action Service, and the Council of Europe).

Nicholas Hodac

Government & Regulatory Affairs Executive, IBM

Nicholas Hodac is Governmental Programs Executive for IBM Europe. In his role for IBM Europe, Mr. Hodac is the European lead for Trade Policy and is also responsible for Governmental Affairs with the Belgian Governments. Prior to joining IBM Europe, Mr. Hodac worked for Ford of Europe as Head of the Brussels EU Affairs Office. In his role for Ford, Mr. Hodac was responsible for all relations with the European Institutions. In addition, Mr. Hodac also had lead responsibility for Trade, Industrial Policy, Vehicle Safety and Environment.

Before joining Ford, Mr. Hodac worked for General Motors Europe (GME) as Manager EU Affairs in its Governmental Affairs office located in Brussels, Belgium. During his time at GME, Mr. Hodac has also worked in General Motors’ Governmental Affairs office in Washington D.C., USA. Before joining GME, Mr. Hodac worked in the European Parliament as an assistant advisor to the EPP-ED Group in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee.

Mr. Hodac holds a Masters in European Foreign Policy from the Institute of European Studies at the University of Brussels, Belgium. Prior to that he graduated from the University of New York in Prague, Czech Republic, with a Bachelor in European and International Economics; and from the University of Brussels, Belgium, with a Bachelor in Law.

Max Hofmann

European Correspondent, Brussels Bureau Chief, Deutsche Welle

Max Hofmann has been Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Brussels bureau chief since 2014. In his role, he has covered the EU Council Summits, the Paris attacks, COP 21, and the migration crisis, among other news stories affecting Europe.

Since joining Deutsche Welle in 2004, Hofmann has worked as the station’s senior North America correspondent, a host for DW-TV, an editor, and as the news anchor for the ‘Journal’ program. In 2010, he was awarded the RIAS- Prize for New Media in 2010 along with the journalist Christoph Lanz for the animation “Walled In.” Hofmann has master’s in journalism and communications.

Emma Hogan

European Correspondent, The Economist

Emma Hogan is the Europe correspondent for The Economist, based in London. She writes about migration, politics and social affairs in Europe. Prior to this, she was a Britain correspondent for The Economist.

Daniel Kaiser

Journalist, Echo Magazine

Daniel Kaiser graduated at the Faculty of education at University of J. E. Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem and German and Austrian studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University Prague. During his studies Kaiser worked in a foreign-policy committee of the president’s office. Since 1998 he has worked at Lidové noviny, in the Czech office of BBC Radio, in 2009 he joined Lidové noviny again. He left MAFRA media group in September 2013 when it was bought by Andrej Babiš and wrote for a weekly magazine Reflex. Since January 2014 he has been a reporter for Echo24 and Echo magazine.

Matthew Kaminski

Executive Editor, POLITICO's European Edition

Matthew Kaminski is the Executive Editor of POLITICO’s European edition, which launched in April 2015. Prior to joining POLITICO in January 2015, Matt was a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in New York. He wrote editorials, opinion columns and features, mainly on international affairs. For the previous 15 years, Matt worked as journalist throughout Europe, starting as a “stringer” in Kiev for the Financial Times and the Economist in 1994, writing stories from throughout the former Soviet Union. He joined the Journal in 1997 in its Brussels bureau. He covered Central Europe, the EU and trans-Atlantic security issues, and in 2002 moved to Paris to edit the editorial pages of the Journal’s European edition.

He was awarded an Overseas Press Club prize in 2015 for his coverage of the Ukraine crisis. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary that year. The German Marshall Fund in 2004 awarded him its Peter Weitz Junior prize for excellence in reporting on European affairs for a series of columns about the EU.

Sony Kapoor

Managing Director, Re-Define

Sony Kapoor is an influential macroeconomist, financial sector expert and development practitioner. At Re-Define, Sony advises multilateral organisations, large investors, central banks, European and emerging governments on economic and financial policy. He is Strategy Adviser to the Systemic Risk Centre and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Development and Government Departments at the LSE, and is a special adviser to the UN Environment Programme on green finance. An ex-investment banker, Sony has been an adviser to the European Commission and Parliament, the IMF, the OECD and a strategy adviser to the Norwegian government. He is a fellow of the RSA, a WEF YGL and alumnus of IIT Delhi and the LSE.

Marcin Korolec

Polish civil servant & lawyer, former Minister of Environment of the Republic of Poland

Marcin Korolec is a lawyer, long-standing government administration worker, and negotiator. He was Polish Secretary of State for climate policy from 2014 to 2015, Minister of the Environment from 2011 to 2013 and Deputy Minister of economy (Minister for Trade) between 2005 and 2011. Between 2005 and 2015 represented Poland in more than 120 EU Council Ministers Meetings (Councils: Competitiveness, Energy, Trade, Environment, Climate). Marcin was President of the COP 19 in 2013 and also co-led the European Union’s delegation at the 2012 UNFCCC UN Conference in Durban. As an Advisor to the Government Plenipotentiary for Poland’s membership in the EU (1998 – 2004), he was responsible for such areas of negotiation as free movement of goods and people, agriculture, competition and consumer protection policies.

Involved in managing institutions concerned with environment and climate protection, both Polish and international, he has been a member of the Supervisory Board at the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management 2010 - 2011. In 2011 he represented Poland in the Council of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He established (2013) Green Weimar Triangle – cooperation between Environment Ministers from France, Germany, Poland.

Hans Kundnani

Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Hans Kundnani is a senior transatlantic fellow with GMF’s Europe program, based in Berlin. He previously worked as the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, where he worked for five years. He is also an associate fellow at the Institute for German Studies at Birmingham University. He studied German and philosophy at Oxford University and journalism at Columbia University in New York, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He speaks English and German.

His research focuses on German and European foreign policy. He is the author of two books, Utopia or Auschwitz. Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (2009); and The Paradox of German Power (2014). His articles and papers have been published in journals such as Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, and Internationale Politik; and newspapers such as The Financial Times, Le Monde, and Die Zeit.

Mart Laanemae

Undersecretary for Europe and Transatlantic Co-operation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia

Mart Laanemäe, born in Canada, is Undersecretary for Europe and Transatlantic Co-operation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia. He is an active proponent of internet freedom, an organizer of the Freedom Online Coalition conference in Tallinn 2014. In 2013, he worked as acting Undersecretary for political affairs, between 2008 and 20012 he worked as Estonian ambassador to Germany. Furthermore, he was first head of the Estonian delegation negotiating OECD accession and between 2004 and 2009 held post of first head of the Estonian delegation negotiating OECD accession.

Tania le Moigne

Country Director, Google Czech Republic & Slovakia

Tania le Moigne is the Country Director for Google Czech Republic and Slovakia. She launched the Google Czech and Slovak offices in 2006 and 2010, respectively. Tania has been working in the IT industry and Internet world for most of her career. She has spent more than nine years at Microsoft in Prague, Munich and London, where she has held various management positions in the areas of marketing, IP protection and enterprise strategy. For her outstanding impact on internet innovation in the Czech Republic she was honoured with the LUPA award for “Personality of the Czech Internet 2009”. She took first place in the Hospodářské noviny award “Top 25 Women of Czech Business” in 2011. Since 2011 Tania has belonged among the Top 25 most influential businesswomen in the Czech Republic as listed by the Hospodářské noviny newspaper and FORBES. In 2014 Tania received an award “HR personality of the year”. Being a successful entrepreneur Tania is also the founder of 4bambini, a company developing series of board games for children that promote important life values such as good manners, health, diversity, safety and good eating habits. Tania is a Board member and mentor at the non-commercial mentoring project Odyssey, which supports Women in Business. She occasionally cooperates with the University of Economics, New York University and European Leadership & Academic Institute in Prague, where she lectures on Values Based Leadership. Tania is a Board Member of the Aspen Institute Prague, Board Member of the NGO Dobrý anděl, and a member of YPO Czech Republic. Tania Le Moigne graduated from the University of Economics, Prague.

Eric Maurice

Editor-in-Chief, EUobserver

Eric Maurice has been working for EUobserver since 2015. He was previously editor in chief of the European news website Presseurop. He is from France, where he worked for Courrier international after having studied history of international relations and journalism in Paris.

Martin Michelot

Head of Research, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy

Martin Michelot is the Director of the Global Europe program and Head of Research at the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Paris office of German Marshall Fund of the US. He leads Europeum’s foreign policy programming in Central Europe, with a focus on security policy, immigration issues and regional cooperation. Michelot also manages the high-level convening program Transatlantic Security and Future of NATO program for the GMF, where he has over 4 years of experience in event management and research on transatlantic security cooperation issues.

He is a graduate of Sciences Po Lyon, where he studied international relations. His previous experiences include the Brookings Institution, and the French National Assembly, as parliamentary assistant. Michelot is a regular contributor to various news outlets on the topics of European defense policy and transatlantic relations. He teaches seminars at Sciences Po Lyon, Sciences Po Reims, the Ecole Centrale, and Charles University. He was selected by the Atlantic Council as one of the 15 Emerging Leaders tasked with writing a report before the NATO 2014 Wales Summit.

Simon Nixon

Chief European Commentator, Wall Street Journal

Simon Nixon is Chief European Commentator of the Wall Street Journal and writes extensively on pan-European politics, economics and finance. He also writes a weekly column for The Times (of London). He joined the WSJ in 2008 as European editor of the financial analysis and commentary column Heard on the Street. Prior to this he was executive editor of financial commentary website Breakingviews and City editor of The Week. He has a first class degree in History from Trinity College, Cambridge.

Vassilis Ntousas

International Relations Policy Advisor, Foundation for European Progressive Studies

Vassilis is International Relations Policy Advisor at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), where he conducts political research and coordinates various international projects and activities. Vassilis received his MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 2011, specialising mainly in foreign policy analysis and international security issues. He had previously received a First Class Honours for his BA in International Relations and Politics from the University of Sheffield in 2008. Prior to joining FEPS, Vassilis worked as senior communications and political advisor at the Municipality of Thessaloniki, Greece, providing advice in the areas of international affairs and intercity diplomatic relations. He has extensive experience in strategic and tactical political communications, with a particular focus on crafting comprehensive, tailor-made messaging, engagement and outreach strategies. Vassilis began his career in Brussels taking part in a traineeship at the Secretariat General of the European Commission, where he carried out political analysis on the proceeding of various committees of the European Parliament, related to international affairs. Following this, he worked as a public affairs consultant at APCO Worldwide, representing a variety of high-profile clients, advising on policy-making and regulatory processes within the EU institutional landscape.

Vivien Pertusot

Head of the Brussels Office, Institut francais des relations internationales

Vivien Pertusot is Head of Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) office in Brussels. He coordinates Ifri's research programme "REcalibrate Security in Europe and in the Transatlantic area" (RESET), which focuses on defence policies and defence cooperation in Europe. He is also the coordinator of the project "Building Bridges between National Perspectives on the European Union". He previously worked at NATO and Carnegie Europe.

He has a Master's degree in Middle Eastern Politics and History from King's College London and in International Relations from IRIS Sup in Paris. He has also studied for a year at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Nicu Popescu

Senior Analyst, The European Union Institute for Security Studies

Nicu Popescu is senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris where he works on Russia and the eastern neighbourhood of the EU. He previously worked as advisor on foreign policy and EU affairs for the prime minister of Moldova (2010, 2012-2013). Prior to this, he worked as head of programme and senior research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London (2007-2009, 2011-2012), and as a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005-2007). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He is author of a book on EU Foreign Policy and the post-Soviet Conflicts: Stealth Intervention (Routledge, 2010) and co-editor of Democratization in EU Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2015).

Wojciech Przybylski

Editor-in-chief Eurozine & chairman Res Publica

Wojciech Przybylski is editor-in-chief of Eurozine (Vienna). Together with editors from four countries, he also publishes in the Visegrad Insight - a magazine on Central Europe. He previously worked as junior research fellow at the Warsaw University, the Political Academy in Vienna, and as a research fellow at CEFRES in Prague. He has initiated City DNA program empowering local communities and researching cultural policies. In 2014 he launched New Europe 100, project that highlights innovators from the region run by Res Publica in partnership with Financial Times, Google and Visegrad Fund.

Dalibor Roháč

Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Dalibor Rohac is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies European political and economic trends. Specifically, he is working on Central and Eastern Europe, the European Union (EU) and the eurozone, US-EU relations, and the post-Communist transitions and backsliding of countries in the former Soviet bloc. He is concurrently a visiting fellow at the Max Beloff Centre for the Study of Liberty at the University of Buckingham in the UK and a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. Before joining AEI, Rohac was affiliated with the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, the London-based Legatum Institute, and the Center for the New Europe in Brussels. He has also worked in the office of the president of the Czech Republic in Prague. Rohac’s analyses and commentary have been published widely in the media, including in the Financial Times, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets. His scholarly articles have been featured in professional journals, among them Constitutional Political Economy, Economic Affairs, and the European Journal for the History of Economic Thought. His first book, Towards an Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU was published by Rowman & Littlefield in May 2016. He received his PhD in political economy from King’s College London. Previously, he was educated at University of Oxford, George Mason University, and Charles University in Prague.

Anton Shekhovtsov

Visiting Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences

Anton Shekhovtsov is Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (Austria), Fellow of the Legatum Institute (UK), and General Editor of the “Explorations of the Far Right” book series at Ibidem-Verlag (Germany). His main area of expertise is the European far right, relations between Russia and radical right-wing parties in the West, and illiberal tendencies in Central and Eastern Europe. He is the author of the Russian language book New Radical Right-Wing Parties in European Democracies (Stuttgart, 2011), and co-editor of The Post-War Anglo-American Far Right (Basingstoke, 2014) and White Power Music (Ilford, 2012). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, and published several academic articles in Journal of Democracy, Russian Politics and Law, Europe-Asia Studies, and Patterns of Prejudice among others.

Gabriel Siles-Brugge

Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester

Gabriel Siles-Brügge is currently a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester and soon to take up an appointment as an Associate Professor in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the co-author of TTIP: The Truth about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (with Ferdi De Ville from Ghent University) and Constructing European Union Trade Policy. He is also a Scientific Advisor to the European Public Health Alliance and President of the Board of the Health and Trade Network.

Dimitri Sotiropoulos

Associate professor of political science, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens

Dimitri Sotiropoulos is associate professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens. He has studied law, sociology and political science at the Law School of the University of Athens (LLB), the London School of Economics (MSc) and Yale University (MA, M.Phil. and Ph.D., awarded with distinction, 1991). In 2003 he was Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics and in 2009-2010 Visiting Fellow in South East European Studies at the Centre for European Studies, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. He serves on the editorial board of the academic journals South European Society and Politics, European Political Science Review and the Greek Review of Political Science.

Kea-Sophie Stieber

Foundation's Head of the European Union desk, Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung

Kea-Sophie Stieber was born on April the 25th, 1985. She completed her law studies with a focus on European economic law at University of Mannheim, Germany in 2009. She succesfully passed the Associate judge exam in 2012 and worked as a lawyer for european brandmark and copyright law in a Stuttgart law firm until 2013. In January 2015 she joined Hanns-Seidel-Foundation as a senior analyst for European Integrtion, European and International Law, Civil Rights and the Constitutional state.

Peter Stračár

General Director for Central and Eastern Europe, General Electric

Peter Stracar has been the CEO for GE Global Growth Organization in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) based in Prague since 1st January, 2013. Prior to joining GE, he served as the President of Asia Pacific Hilti Corporation based in Hong for 18 years. Born in Slovakia in 1965, Peter holds a Master's Degree in Electronic Engineering & Computer Science from the Technical University of Kosice/Slovakia, and started his career at IBM Eastern Europe.

Wolfgang Wessels

Professor and Jean-Monnet-Chair, University of Cologne

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wessels holds a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam for Political Science and is Director of the Centre for Turkey and European Union Studies (CETEUS) at the University of Cologne. He has a Master Degree in Economic and Political Science (1973), a doctorate in political science from the University of Cologne (1979) and he received the Venia legendi in Political Science of the University of Bonn in 1990. Since summer 1994, he is chairholder and since 2011, is honored ad personam of the Jean Monnet Chair for Political Science at the University of Cologne. In 2011 he was awarded for 'Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary European Studies' by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). In 2015 he was awarded with the “Universitätspreis Forschung“ by the University of Cologne for his excellence in research. Prof. Wessels is co-editor of the “Jahrbuch der Europäischen Union” (35th Edition) and the “Europa von A-Z, Taschenbuch der europäischen Integration” (14th Edition) and has published widely in leading journals and edited volumes. He is involved in several research and teaching networks such as THESEUS, PADEMIA and OPAL. He is the Chairperson of the Executive Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP, Berlin) and of the Executive Board of the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA, Brussels). Since 2010 he is Vice-President of the German consortium for the foundation of the Turkish-German University, Istanbul. Since 1981 he is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Brugge and Natolin. His areas of research include the political system of the European Union, the role of the EU in the international system, the deepening and widening of the EU, modes of governance as well as theories and strategies of European integration.

Brian Whitmore

Senior Russia Analyst, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Brian Whitmore is Senior Russia Analyst at RFE/RL. He writes the Power Vertical blog, which focuses on Russian affairs, and hosts the Power Vertical Podcast. Prior to joining RFE/RL in 2007, Brian worked for eight years for the Boston Globe, first in the Globe's Moscow bureau and later as Central and Eastern European correspondent based in Prague. Before this he was a political correspondent and columnist for The Moscow Times and its sister publication The St. Petersburg Times.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Brian has a Bachelor's Degree in Politics from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and an MA in Political Science from Villanova University. He has worked as a graduate lecturer in the Department of Government and International Studies at the University of South Carolina, and as a visiting lecturer in the History Faculties of Odessa State University (now Mechnikov National University) in Ukraine and St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

Tim Worstall

Fellow, Adam Smith Institute

Tim Worstall is a Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London and a frequent contributor to Forbes and the Register. He has also written for the Guardian, the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph blogs. In 2010 his blog was listed as one of the top 100 UK blogs by Total Politics.

Lubomír Zaorálek

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

Michael Žantovský

Director, Václav Havel Library & President, Aspen Institute Prague

Michael Žantovský is a diplomat, politician, writer, and translator. He studied psychology at Charles University in Prague and McGill University in Montreal, Canada and worked as a research psychologist. From 1980, Mr. Žantovský worked as a freelance translator and author. He has translated into Czech more than 50 works of contemporary English and American fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction. He was a contributor to the samizdat press and the Prague correspondent for Reuters, the international news agency. In &nbsp;1989 he was a founding member of the Czech chapter of P.E.N., the international organization of writers and translators that had been banned in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era. In November 1989 he was a founding member of the Civic Forum, an umbrella organization that coordinated the overthrow of the Communist regime, and became its press spokesman.&nbsp; In January 1990 he became the Spokesman and Press Secretary for President Václav Havel. In July 1992 he was appointed Ambassador to the United States. In 1996 he was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and served as the chairman of its Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security. He served as the Czech Ambassador to Israel from 2003 till 2009. From 2009 till August 2015, he was the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Court of St. James’s. He is a regular contributor to World Affairs Journal and Aspen Review Central Europe. Since 2012, he has served as the President of Aspen Institute Prague. His biography of his longtime friend Václav Havel: A Life was published in English, Czech and several other languages in November 2014 to high acclaim. On September 1, 2015, Mr. Zantovsky became Executive Director of Václav Havel Library in Prague.

Photos 6th June

Photos 7th June

Photos 8th June

Videos

Opening Plenary Session

Words of welcome.

Radko Hokovský, Executive Director, European Values Think-TankPetr Kratochvíl, Director, Institute of International Relations PragueMartin Michelot, Head of Research, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy

Key-Note Address: Why Is It Better to Be Together?

Lubomír Zaorálek, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Kristalina Georgieva, European Commission Vice-President for Budget and Human Resources

Business Panel - A More Competitive Europe: How to Enhance the Internal Market

The internal market, however imperfect and...

Workshop A - Identity: European Togetherness,Values and Nationalism

A shared political identity – a “national...

Workshop B - Security: Can Anyone Face the Current Threats Alone?

Has the EU's response to combatting terrorism...

Workshop C - Prosperity: How to Translate Economic Growth into Social Cohesion?

The freedom of movement and the right to equal...

PES Oxford Debate A - Greece Should Stay in the Eurozone

While the potential Greek exit from the Eurozone...

PES Oxford Debate B - EU Member States Should Transfer Their Sovereignty to the European Army

With European security having taken a front seat...

PES Oxford Debate C - TTIP is Contraty to EU Interests

This panel will discuss whether the Transatlantic...

PES Chat - Crises in the Neighbourhood

Speaker: Péter Balázs, Professor, Central...

Final Plenary Session - Better Together?

Rapporteur A: Dalibor Roháč, Research Fellow,...

The European Union in a Time of Crisis: Better Together?

Bohuslav Sobotka, Prime Minister of the Czech...

Closing Remarks

Radko Hokovský, Executive Director, European...

European Values Think-tank is a non-governmental institution which promotes raising of political culture in the Czech Republic as well as on the European level. We provide decision-makers with expert recommendations and we watch and evaluate their work systematically. We consider active citizens, accountable politicians and a cohesive society sharing values of freedom and democracy to be the basic elements of high political culture. Since 2005, as a non-governmental and a non-profitable organisation which is not linked to any political party, we have been pursuing research and educational activities. Besides publishing analytical papers and commentaries for media, we organise conferences, seminars and trainings for both experts and public. Our events provide a platform for dialogue amongst politicians, professionals, journalists, businesspeople and students.

EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent think-tank focusing on European integration. EUROPEUM contributes to democracy, security, stability, freedom, and solidarity across Europe as well as to active engagement of the Czech Republic in the European Union. EUROPEUM undertakes research, publishing, and educational activities and formulates new ideas and opinions to the EU and Czech policy making.

The Institute of International Relations, Prague (IIR) is an independent public research institution which conducts excellent academic research in the larger field of international relations, which includes European studies, security studies, area studies and other related disciplines. IIR has been the leading academic institution for the study of international relations in the Czech Republic since 1957 and it is also an active member of several international research networks. In its IR research, it sets national benchmarks for the quality of scientific research in International Relations. As an independent institution originally founded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the IIR also provides policy analysis and recommendations. It serves as a hub for academics, policy makers and the general public. It stimulates the expert, intellectual and public debates on the Czech foreign policy, European affairs and global issues. The IIR also publishes a number of academic journals and books, and it offers a joint PhD programme in International Relations and European Studies.

Whole Conference programme will be held within the premises of the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle, one of the most significant cultural sites in the Czech Republic and the only privately owned building in the Prague Castle complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through the centuries, the Palace witnessed some of Bohemia’s most important historical events. It houses part of the highly-acclaimed The Lobkowicz Collections, a unique collection of paintings, rich decorative art, spectacular arms and armor,and rare musical instruments and manuscripts by Beethoven and Mozart, including Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies and Mozart’s re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah.

After the registration at the Registration Desk, the participants will be provided with a badge, which is non-transferable, and will be asked to wear it at all time, as well as a conference package, including the final agenda, the list of International Programme Board members and speakers, and other PES related materials.